I still think they are apples and oranges. If you boost *all* titles, you're effectively boosting none of them. Index time boosting expresses "this document's title is more important than other document titles." What I think you're after is "titles are more important than other parts of the document.
For this latter, you're talking query-time boosting. Boosting only really makes sense if there are multiple clauses, something like title:important OR body:unimportant. If this is true, speed is irrelevant, you need correct behavior. Not that I think you'd notice either way. Modern computers can do a LOT of FLOPS/sec. Here's an experiment: time some queries (but beware of timing the very first ones, see the Wiki) with boosts and without boosts. I doubt you'll see enough difference to matter (but please do report back if you do, it'll further my education <G>). But, depending on your index structure, you may get this anyway. Generally, matches on shorter fields weigh more in the score calculations than on longer fields. If you have fields like title and body and you are querying on title:term OR body:term, documents with term in the title will tend toward higher scores. But before putting too much effort into this, do you have any evidence that the default behavior is unsatisfactory? Because unless and until you do, I think this is a distraction <G>... Best Erick On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 8:37 AM, Girish Redekar <girish.rede...@aplopio.com>wrote: > Hi Erick - > > Maybe I mis-wrote. > > My question is: would "title:any_query^4.0" be faster/slower than applying > index time boost to the field title. Basically, if I take *every* user > query > and search for it in title with boost (say, 4.0) - is it different than > saying field title has boost 4.0? > > Cheers, > Girish Redekar > http://girishredekar.net > > > On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 2:02 AM, Erick Erickson <erickerick...@gmail.com > >wrote: > > > I'll take a whack at index .vs. query boosting. They are expressing very > > different concepts. Let's claim we're interested in boosting the title > > field.... > > > > Index time boosting is expressing "this document's title is X more > > important > > > > than a normal document title". It doesn't matter *what* the title is, > > any query that matches on anything in this document's title will give > this > > document a boost. I might use this to give preferential treatment to all > > encyclopedia entries or something. > > > > Query time boosting, like "title:solr^4.0" expresses "Any document with > > solr > > in > > it's title is more important than documents without solr in the title". > > This > > really > > only makes sense if you have other clauses that might cause a document > > *without* > > solr the title to match...... > > > > Since they are doing different things, efficiency isn't really relevant. > > > > HTH > > Erick > > > > > > On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 2:13 AM, Girish Redekar > > <girish.rede...@aplopio.com>wrote: > > > > > Hi , > > > > > > I'm relatively new to Solr/Lucene, and am using Solr (and not lucene > > > directly) primarily because I can use it without writing java code > (rest > > of > > > my project is python coded). > > > > > > My application has the following requirements: > > > (a) ability to search over multiple fields, each with different weight > > > (b) If possible, I'd like to have the ability to add extra/diminished > > > weights to particular tokens within a field > > > (c) My query strings have large lengths (50-100 words) > > > (d) My index is 500K+ documents > > > > > > 1) The way to (a) is field boosting (right?). My question is: Is all > > field > > > boosting done at query time? Even if I give index time boosts to > fields? > > Is > > > there a performance advantage in boosting fields at index time vs at > > using > > > something like fieldname:querystring^boost. > > > 2) From what I've read, it seems that I can do (b) using payloads. > > However, > > > as this link ( > > > > > > > > > http://www.lucidimagination.com/blog/2009/08/05/getting-started-with-payloads/ > > > ) > > > suggests, I will have to write a payload aware Query Parser. Wanted to > > > confirm if this is indeed the case - or is there a out-of-box way to > > > implement payloads (am using Solr1.4) > > > 3) For my project, the user fills multiple text boxes (for each query). > I > > > combine these into a single query (with different treatment for > contents > > of > > > each text box). Consequently, my query looks something like > (fieldname1: > > > queryterm1 queryterm2^2.0 queryterm3^3.0 +queryterm4)^1.0 Are there > any > > > guidelines for improving performance of such a system (sorry, this bit > is > > > vague) > > > > > > Any help with this will be great ! > > > > > > Girish Redekar > > > http://girishredekar.net > > > > > >
